SC/ST Act applicable if there’s intention to humiliate on caste identity basis: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Friday (August 23) clarified that only caste-based insult of the members of a Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) amounts to an offence under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 only if the accused had intended to insult the victim based on his or her caste identity.

The Supreme Court bench also noted that each intentional insult or intimidation of a member of the SC/ST community may not give rise to the feeling of discrimination on the ground of caste.

Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989

The Act was passed by the Indian parliament to deal with the continued and systematic prejudice, abuse and domination that all the SCs and STs undergo in different aspects of their lives. It spells out various offences against the SCs and STs as atrocities and prescribes severe penalties for the offenders. The main aim of the act is to facilitate the social and economic development of SCs and STs and to check their oppression and exclusion.

The Act prescribes a plethora of offences against SCs and STs including causing hurt or mental injury, sexual assault, forced conversion, unlawful acquisition of land, economic deprivation, social ostracism, exclusion from public delivery systems, etc. It allows the state governments to set up special courts to deal with trials of offences under the act within two months from the filing of the chargesheet.

It bars anticipatory bail for any person charged with an offense under the Act if the court does not find a prima facie case against him or her. Any offence under the Act that is committed attracts a jail term of not less than 6 months, which may be increased depending on the gravity of the offence to a term of life imprisonment or, in some cases, even death penalty.

Recent Supreme Court judgement

In the case of anticipatory bail granted to Shajan Skaria, the publisher and editor of a YouTube channel named “Marunadan Malayali”, for an offence under this Act of 1989 while he uploaded a video against Kerala MLA P. V. Sreenijin belonging to the Scheduled Caste community, a Bench of Justices P. B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra made interpretation of the special law enacted, calling him a ‘mafia don’ in the video.

Skaria had telecast a news item regarding mis-administration of the Sports Hostel by Sreenijin under his capacity of Chairman, District Sports Council. The Court today quashed the judgment delivered by the Kerala High Court on June 2023 whereby and whereunder it had dismissed his application for anticipatory bail.

The Supreme Court made it clear that the phrase ‘intent to humiliate’ mentioned in Section 3(1)(r) namely, intentional insult or intimidation with intent to humiliate anyone who is a member of a SC/ST within the public view is dealt with, it is directly connected with the aspect of caste identity of the person who has been subjected to the intentional insult or intimidation. ‘This does not mean that every time there is an intentional insult or intimidation of a member of an SC/ST community, the said individual will feel caste-based humiliation,’ the Court noted.

The court has said that not all intentional insult or intimidation of a member of a SC/ST community will translate into feeling of caste-based humiliation and that it can only be said to be an insult or intimidation of the type envisaged by the Act, 1989 where the insult/intimidation is due to the practice of untouchability or to give effect to the historically ingrained ideas of superiority of the ‘upper castes’ over the ‘lower castes/untouchables’ through the notions of ‘pollution’ or ‘purity’, then it could be said to be the intimidation of the type mentioned by the Act, 1989.